


On Track

by Eloarei



Category: Back to the Future (Movies), Back to the Future: The Game
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bullying, Ghosts, M/M, Mystery, Past Character Death, Suicide mention, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Named after one trainjacker and visited by the ghost of the other; you could say Emmett Brown was on-track to his destiny.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My new friends in the BTTF community have inspired me to try writing for this fandom, for which I thank them, because it's been fun so far! I'm writing this as practice, and mostly by-ear, but I do have a general idea of where it's going. It shouldn't be longer than 30k and five or six chapters, and if I'm _real_ lucky, I'll have it done before multiple months pass by. =]  
>  Note, I've stuck with Doc's birth-year being 1920, so he'll be about 16 at this point.

"It's entirely a coincidence," Emmett's parents had claimed, when he asked them why he was named after a dead trainjacker. "That incident was long before we even moved to America. We didn't hear about it until after you were born."  
  
Emmett was skeptical of such grand coincidences, but he didn't think there was any reason for his parents to lie to him about this, and even less reason (as far as he could imagine) for them to have named him after a criminal, so he let the matter drop.  
  
That is to say, he didn't ask them about it again. Still, he couldn't help but be a little intrigued by the situation, after he'd learned about it in primary school. Of course, the Shonash Ravine Trainwreck was a favorite bit of local history for any kid; what young boy could possibly resist daydreaming about such a glorious disaster (especially when school was otherwise often so boring)? Roughly a third of the children chose it as a topic whenever they were made to do history reports. Their retellings of the events were always exciting and well-received by the other students (though the teachers were likely a little tired of hearing the same tale over and over again), but they made Emmett a little uneasy.  
  
There were a few reasons for this. First of all, of course, was that the other kids would always make fun of him whenever the story was brought up, as if _he_ was the local blacksmith who'd suddenly gone crazy and run a train off a cliff for no apparent reason, just because they shared a name. (Down to the letter, too. The other kids agreed it couldn't be purely coincidence, but most of them figured maybe Emmett Lathrop Brown was a popular German name or something.) He tired of this treatment very quickly, but there was little he could aside from grin and bear it.  
  
The second reason... well, it didn't make him any more popular with the other children, sounding like he was sympathizing with his namesake at all. And he didn't _condone_ what the man and his assistant had done, particularly not as it had gotten the presumably-innocent schoolteacher killed as well, but nobody _ever_ talked about _them_. It was always about the trainjacking and the explosion. If he was lucky, one kid might do a report on the actual locomotive occasionally, but nobody ever wrote reports on the men behind the stunt. What, what, _what_ in the world had inspired them to do such a thing? What were they trying to accomplish? No matter what everyone else said, Emmett just didn't believe that anyone as supposedly intelligent as the blacksmith would hijack a train and plunge it off a cliff for no reason. He didn't believe the man had just gone insane-- and he didn't want to believe it was suicide, as much as he found that he understood why some people might want to go that path. Bullied students, though, were miles apart from successful old men.  
  
And the man had been successful, from all that Emmett's studies had shown. The history books (and what little remained about E.L. Brown in the town's gossip) all indicated that he had been not only good at his blacksmithing job, and well-liked around the town during the year he'd lived there, but also astoundingly inventive. After the man had died, the townsfolk had found in his home a plethora of strange machines and contraptions, some of which they still didn't understand, and others which had turned out to be early prototypes for things which would not become household installations for years. He'd made an _ice-maker_ , for God's sake. In the desert, in 1885, before modern irrigation had even provided them with reliably clean water. He'd had to have been a genius. Emmett didn't doubt that the man had done as the history books claimed, but he _knew_ there had to be more to it than simple madness.  
  
That opinion really didn't endear him to his classmates, however. After he'd made the mistake of doing as he'd always hoped someone else might and writing a report about the more personal aspects of the trainjackers' lives (he'd focused on Brown's inventions particularly; the teacher had praised him on his detailed research), the other boys had taken to teasing him relentlessly.  
  
It carried on like that for years, unpleasant but bearable, if only just. Emmett dealt with their poking at him while they were in class, but otherwise didn't give them the opportunity to go much further with their teasing, staying mostly at home when school wasn't in session. He understood human psychology and sociology; adolescent boys often acted this way toward any young male they thought was weaker than them, and the best way to avoid the treatment was to simply not put yourself in their path. (He also consoled himself with the knowledge that these boys' aggressive attitudes implied a lower degree of evolution.)  
  
He should have known, he later found himself thinking, that avoidance wouldn't work forever. After all, there was a definite period of time each day during which Emmett was at risk of being further terrorized-- the walk between the school and his house. And, after all, the boys didn't stay children forever; as they entered their teen years, well, what with hormones and growth spurts and the increasingly socialized pack mentality, they became bolder. He should have known that they'd catch him at some point or another, regardless of how fast or sneaky he'd gotten.  
  
He should have known where they'd take him, too.  
  
After one of the bigger boys had socked him hard in the stomach, Emmett had passed out. He'd woken some time later, groggy and in pain, feeling several pairs of hands on him, holding him up, and the wind blowing swiftly around him.  
  
"Wakey wakey, Eel! It's time to take a trip," one of the boys said in a horrible cracking sing-song voice. (A few of them had taken to calling him that lately, "Eel", both because it sounded somewhat like "E.L." and because he'd been pretty good at slipping out of their grasps-- at least until this point. It was so juvenile he could hardly stand it. Eels, particularly the electric kind, _were_ fascinating, but he didn't want to be likened to one.)  
  
It took him a few moments to come to his senses enough to open his eyes, but when he did, he wished he hadn't. They were standing at the very edge of the Shonash ravine, not three feet from tipping over into the abyss. All that stood between him and a painful death was a short rail, not two feet high, more of a warning than a safeguard. All that stood between him and freedom were six cackling jackals and the human masks they wore.  
  
"This is so stupid," he told them, trying to get his breathing under control. "This is absolutely the worst idea anybody has ever had. Do you really think you're going to get away with killing me?! My father is the judge, you know!"  
  
"Kill you?" one of the boys asked, feigning surprise. "Nah. We're not gonna kill you. You're gonna kill yourself."  
  
Emmett's heart rate spiked. He could feel it beating all the way up in his mouth. He thought he might be sick. "N-nobody would believe that," he said faintly, both nervousness and uncertainty making it hard to sound like he believed what he was saying.  
  
The boys all grinned and chuckled darkly. "Sure they will," the tallest of them said. "You left a suicide note in your desk at school. They'll probably find it when you don't show up for a few days."  
  
If Emmett hadn't been so terrified, he'd have been a little impressed. But he _was_ terrified, and the feeling didn't leave room for much else. "Please don't do this," he said, trying to appeal to some humanity he wasn't sure they had.  
  
The tallest boy stepped forward, and Emmett took a step back, straight into the rail. "I told you, Eel," he said, one hand on his hip, the other flexing at his side, "we're not gonna do anything. It's gonna be all on you." And with that, he balled up his fist and swung at Emmett's face.  
  
Instinctively, Emmett dodged, flailing back away from the punch. As the bullies expected, he toppled over the rail. His momentum was too great, and the two feet of dirt wasn't enough space to get his lanky limbs righted under him, and before he could even shout, he'd gone over the edge. The last things he remembered were the shocked faces of his tormentors, the rocky wall of the ravine racing upward, and an indistinct whispering voice. The rest was history.

X*X*X

 _"--stop the train here, uncouple the cars, and then we'll have three miles to get up to 88."_  
  
_"Waitaminit Doc, aren't you forgetting one thing? The track_ ends _right there!"_  
  
_"Marty, you're not thinking 4th dimensionally!"_  
  
"Doc..." came the sad whisper from somewhere above Emmett. "Doc... I missed you so much. I wanted you to be right. I wanted to go home together."  
  
Emmett's face and throat felt tight, and his eyes were damp. His head ached fiercely, but there were hands threaded through his hair, soothing the pain. For a minute he just laid there, with his head in somebody's lap. His mother hadn't held him like this since he was little boy, since one of the first times he'd come home half-full of unshed tears (the others were already streaks down his face) because the kids had been so cruel to him for some dumb reason or another. She'd whispered calmly at him, "Everything's going to be alright, my dear," and stroked her long thin fingers across his brow.  
  
But these weren't his mother's hands. He opened his eyes.  
  
"It's you..." the young man said, staring down at him like he could scarcely believe his own eyes.  
  
Emmett, likewise, was having trouble believing his own eyes, because what on earth was a strange boy he'd never seen before doing, sitting here, holding his head in his lap? He snapped upright and jerked away from the stranger, and regretted it when he smacked his head against a rock jutting out of the dirt wall he was seated next to.  
  
"What in God's name..." he said, taking in his surroundings. The dirt wall extended left and right for some ways, up for at least a good ten yards, and after the flat outcropping upon which he sat, down for another few stories. This was the Shonash ravine. He was sitting in the ravine. His schoolmates had pushed him off the cliff and he'd fallen into the ravine! And there was a strange boy with him.  
  
The young man reached for him, concerned about the new gash mostly hidden under his dust-streaked hair, but Emmett just shook his head. It didn't feel that bad. He'd be fine.  
  
"I can't believe you're here," Emmett's strange companion said.  
  
He laughed, despite the various pains that were plaguing him right now. "Neither can I," he said. "I never expected those idiots to really do something like that." His eyes narrowed. "I never really expected to survive, for that matter. How far did I fall?" He looked up. Thirty feet or more-- had he really? He didn't feel like any of his limbs were broken.  
  
"Too far," his friend replied, looking pained.  
  
Now that his senses were coming back to him, Emmett looked again at the young man who sat two feet away from him. "Did you... help me?" He imagined the boy must have seen the bullies push him over and climbed down to check on him. Awfully brave, but a little stupid. Emmett would have probably run to the authorities first.  
  
"Yeah, I did what I could," the young man said. "I couldn't let you die. You know... I missed you."  
  
"Well I wouldn't expect you to fight off those bullies on your own," Emmett said, waving it off. "You may not have got to me before I fell, but I appreciate you coming down after me. Say... do I know you?"  
  
"It's _Marty_ ," he said, tone of voice imploring, although Emmett wasn't sure _what_ he was imploring. "McFly," he specified. "You're Emmett Lathrop Brown."  
  
Emmett smiled humorlessly. "Oh, so you've heard of me. I guess it mustn't have been anything _too_ bad, if you bothered rescuing me."  
  
Marty shook his head. He still looked quite sad, something to the set of his eyes, even though he was smiling. "I told you, I couldn't let you die. Before-- it never should've happened that way, Doc."  
  
Raising an eyebrow at the new nickname (odd to get one from someone he'd just met), he shrugged. "No, but there's really no controlling what other people do. And bullies are a league of their own. Hmm, I bet they'll be delighted to see me at school tomorrow. ...God, I've gotta get that note before anyone else finds it. I'll be in deep trouble if my parents believe I actually wrote that." He stood up and dusted himself off to the best of his ability; his clothes would probably still be ruined, though, ripped in more places than you'd expect, given that he showed no signs of scrapes beneath them. "Come on," he said, reaching around for a handhold in the wall. "I'll treat you to dinner or something, after I get that note."  
  
He didn't make it more than a foot up the wall before he glanced back down over his shoulder and found that Marty was nowhere to be seen. "What--?" he said, holding himself roughly to the wall, trembling in the wake of a sudden rush of disorientation.  
  
"Doc, up here," Marty called from the top of the ravine. Emmett almost lost his footing in shock, but managed to keep himself together long enough for Marty to point out the safest route to the edge. He dusted himself off again when he got there, more out of a nervous habit than because he cared about the state of his clothes.  
  
"No wonder you came to rescue me," Emmett said, impressed. "You must be quite the athlete."  
  
Marty didn't respond, but he looked pleased. He walked alongside Emmett as he began the trek back into town. It was quite a ways (had those jackals really dragged him the whole way? Or had one of them maybe thrown him over their shoulder? He didn't really want to know; he felt dirty enough already), so he had plenty of time to finally get a good look at this 'Marty McFly'. (What a ridiculous name, he thought.)  
  
The young man was peculiar, to say the least, and not just because he'd saved Emmett without even really knowing him. For one thing, he was wearing an old-fashioned poncho over his striped blue shirt and rough brown trousers. "You're not Native American, are you?" he asked, and then realized ponchos were probably Hispanic in origin.  
  
"Nah, Doc," Marty said, looking at him skeptically. "Irish."  
  
"Oh. Just thought I'd ask, because of the--" He gestured, and Marty looked down at the offending article like he didn't remember having put it on. He made a face at it, but otherwise ignored it and kept walking.  
  
The other peculiar thing about Marty was, well, it wasn't a peculiarity at all, really. It was just that he was... short. For his age. For what Emmett assumed was his age, because he seemed like he was a little older than Emmett himself, but definitely lagged behind him in height. (Either that or he was slouching terribly beneath that poncho.) "How old are you?" he asked, hoping to sound conversational and not like he was running an interrogation.  
  
Marty thought about it for a few moments, much longer than most people usually took to give a simple two-digit answer. Then he asked, "Uhh... What year is it?"  
  
"What year is it?" Emmett repeated, laughing. "You're a real strange guy. I imagine you're joking, but it's 1936, just in case you hit your head on the way down that cliff to get me."  
  
"Oh," Marty said. "Then, uh, I dunno." He grinned apologetically, and Emmett wanted to laugh some more, because something about that smile and the absolute ridiculousness of this whole situation was making him giddy. He didn't, though, lest Marty think he was laughing at his apparent arithmetic disability. He figured then that Marty was from one of those working families and hadn't had a chance to go to school. That would explain the poncho (or so he told himself; in truth, he knew nothing about working kids, but he figured if they were out on the farm all day then maybe they all wore ponchos for some reason; it sounded plausible).  
  
The third strange thing about Marty, which Emmett realized more and more as they walked, was the way he talked, and the fact that sometimes he didn't. He gave simple answers to most of Emmett's questions, and declined to add any commentary to some of their conversations, in places where most people would have taken the cue to continue. But he listened attentively to everything Emmett said, with this practically dopey look on his face like he was just happy to hear him talk. And when he did say something in return, often it was some round-about comment that only tangentially related to anything they'd been talking about. It almost sounded like he was speaking in riddles.  
  
"Where are you from, anyway?" Emmett asked, trying to place Marty's dialect, comparing it to all the out-of-towners and foreigners he'd met or heard on the radio.  
  
"Somewhere you haven't been yet," Marty replied. He glanced around, looking off into the distance as if imagining his home.  
  
The look on Marty's face was far-away and sad, and Emmett felt a little bad for asking. "It's true I'm not very well-traveled," he admitted. "But maybe one day I'll see this home of yours."  
  
Marty nodded. "You'll like it."  
  
They didn't talk about anything else that was particularly consequential, although Emmett still chattered quite a bit. He'd have been embarrassed, if Marty didn't look so damn pleased. Anyway, he almost felt like he couldn't stop. This was something new to him, having someone to talk to who seemed to care in the slightest, other than maybe his parents or his teachers. It was... it was really nice.  
  
"So, where do you want to get dinner?" Emmett asked as they neared the town proper. "I was going to drop by the school and find that note before anyone else does, but it's getting late, so I don't think anyone's going to bother it. I'm feeling Italian, what about-- ...you. ...Marty?"  
  
Emmett looked over his shoulder, but Marty had disappeared. He turned in a circle, but the young man was nowhere in sight, even though he'd been right beside him just a minute ago, he was sure.  
  
His heart sank as he realized he'd been abandoned. Maybe Marty had gotten tired of all Emmett's gabbing after all. Well, it wasn't as if the young man owed Emmett his friendship or anything, something Emmett told himself several times before sighing and turning towards home. Marty didn't owe him anything, so if he wanted to leave then he very well could. And seeing as it was Emmett who was in debt here, he had no right to complain, no right at all. He'd almost convinced himself of this by the time he arrived at home, though from the look on his mother's face when she saw him, he obviously hadn't done a good job concealing his hurt from _the rest_ of the world.  
  
"Darling, are you alright?" she asked. Then she looked at his clothes, and her eyes narrowed in an expression that was patently motherly: both annoyed and loving. "What on earth happened?"  
  
"I, um, fell," Emmett told her lamely.  
  
"Fell? Where? Down the _ravine_?" She _tsk_ 'd, obviously sarcastic in her suggestion, but not in a cruel way. Mother was never cruel-- just sharp.  
  
"N-no, of course not!" Emmett lied. "It's nothing, really. I'm fine. I'm sorry about the clothes."  
  
Mother looked at him for a long hard moment, and then she sighed. "Alright," she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head softly. "If that's what you say. But don't let your father catch you like that. Run upstairs and change before he gets home for dinner."  
  
Emmett nodded, glad his mother was such a reasonable lady. (She had to be, he figured, to deal with his pigheaded father.) He took to her suggestion and retreated upstairs (after receiving a quick kiss on the cheek). He dumped his clothes in a pile on the floor, not quite sure what he wanted to do with them, and changed into a fresh set. He'd have gone directly back downstairs to wait on dinner (lasagna, it smelled like; a pleasant coincidence), but he thought he caught the tail end of a whisper from somewhere behind him. There was nobody there, of course, but it still set him on edge, and it made him think of Marty.  
  
He tried not to be mad because, as he'd told himself multiple times already, Marty didn't owe him a damn thing, least of all friendship, but he couldn't help feeling betrayed. Which was ridiculous, he knew. You couldn't be betrayed by someone you weren't close with in the first place. And sure, Marty had given him a nickname not a minute into their acquaintance, but that didn't mean they were friends. Maybe he did that to everybody. Maybe "Doc" was just what he called people, the way older men sometimes referred to everyone as "son".  
  
But disappearing without so much as a goodbye was awfully rude. Emmett had never met anyone who dared to be that casual. Then again, he'd never met anyone like Marty, period. There really was just something strange about him, and as sure as he was that they'd never met before, Emmett couldn't help thinking he'd seen him somewhere or knew him somehow. He just couldn't place it, especially with the so-called logical half of his brain dismissively telling him that he ought to just drop it.  
  
"Emmett!" his mother called up the stairs, signaling the start of dinner. So despite the war in his head, he let the matter go, at least for now, and went to stuff himself with pasta as a consolation.  
  
Dinner was no more strained than usual, as it seemed his mother had not mentioned anything of Emmett's previously disheveled state to his father. There was only the same level of vague tension that usually pervaded the dining room when more than two people gathered there. Father, as he often did, had brought his work home with him, and was distracted considering the various issues that hadn't been solved over the course of the day. Emmett was distracted as well, though not by scientific pursuits for once. Mother fussed lightly over the both of them. All-in-all, it was a normal evening. The biggest difference was that Emmett didn't rush to leave the table as soon as possible; there were innumerable equations and experiments to work on, but for once he didn't feel the driving need to. He felt the driving need to give Marty McFly a piece of his mind, but that particular option was off the table.  
  
Eventually, Mother did shoo him away, with yet another of her concerned looks. He smiled at her as convincingly as possible (though he didn't think she bought it) before trudging back upstairs. He figured he'd get to bed early; all the better for arriving at school in time to find that blasted note.  
  
However, it turned out that sleep was not in his immediate future.  
  
"Holy--! Marty, what are you doing in here?"  
  
What Marty was _doing_ was sitting on the edge of Emmett's bed, like he'd been just patiently waiting. "I wanted to see you," he said, looking earnest and not the slightest bit guilty for disappearing earlier.  
  
On one hand, Emmett was pissed that this guy would just show up like nothing was wrong ...but on the other hand, he was ridiculously pleased to see him again. On a third hand, how the hell had he gotten into Emmett's room?  
  
"Okay," Emmett said, brushing Marty's response aside, because _'I wanted to see you'_ was, well, he'd have to think about that later. "But how did you get in here? Did you follow me? Y'know, you could've come with me. My parents aren't that scary, I promise. We could've had dinner here if you didn't want to go into town! And, and why did you leave all of a sudden back there? I thought--" Emmett was aware that he was raving, but he couldn't seem to get himself to stop. God, what an effect this stranger was having on him.  
  
Marty was apparently unbothered by his slew of questions, but he was also apparently uninterested in answering them all. "I've been here before, Doc," he said, half-answering only one of Emmett's many concerns. “Sort of.”  
  
"This is absurd," Emmett said, more to himself than anything. He looked away from Marty because he just couldn't focus with the young man _looking_ at him like that, and then looked back at him after he'd had a moment to think. "Are you stalking me?" he asked, attempting to emulate the calm, stoic tone of voice his father always used when trying criminals.  
  
"No," Marty said, smiling like Emmett had just said something silly. "We're _friends,_ " he added, maybe implying that friendship absolved one of the label of stalker by its own merit.  
  
Emmett's pulse stuttered ( _which is stupid,_ he thought. _Get a grip on yourself!_ ). He'd _thought_ they were friends, even after such a short time. It just seemed like they'd really hit it off. But what did he know about friends, when he'd basically never had one? He couldn't help thinking it was too good to be true, to get along with someone so suddenly. In fact, it almost seemed like a scam.  
  
"How in the world did you get in here anyway?" he asked again, figuring that was perhaps the most important question.  
  
Marty shrugged. "I followed you."  
  
"Followed me?" Emmett repeated, laughing at the idea. "In through the front door? I doubt that!" He went over to the window, but it looked undisturbed, the curtain still hanging neatly in front of the locked latch. "Did you climb up here? I know you're capable, but... Don't tell me you found an open window and came in through one of the other rooms. You know, my father doesn't take well to home invaders. Goodness. You could have just knocked."  
  
Emmett didn't have a chance to say much more, nor Marty to reply, when a knock came at his own bedroom door. "Emmett?" his mother called, opening the door on the second syllable and inviting herself in on the question mark. "Who on earth are you talking to?"  
  
"No one, mother!" he said in a rush, glancing hurriedly around in a fashion he knew was suspicious, and willing his heart not to beat so hard lest his mother hear it. But he felt his heart _stop_ when he found that Marty had disappeared again, like a flash of lightning. "...There's no one. I was, uh, just... thinking out loud."  
  
"Yes, of course," Mother said, although it was clear that she didn't believe there wasn't _something_ odd going on with her son that day. "Yes, that's something you and your father have in common. But I only came to tell you that there's a pie for dessert if you want any. I'll leave you to your work."  
  
"Thank you," Emmett said, coming forward to close the door after her and hoping he didn't sound too relieved. As soon as she was gone, he slumped against the door and locked it, sighing heavily while his heart rate returned to something resembling normality. "Marty?" he called quietly, after he was sure his mother was out of range.  
  
The young man _didn't_ (as Emmett rather thought he might) crawl out from under the bed, or extricate himself from the closet or behind the curtains, and he wasn't in any of those places when Emmett went to check. Likewise, the window was still latched, so it wasn't likely he'd got out that way.  
  
"I've acquainted myself with an escape artist," Emmett muttered to himself. "A regular Houdini."  
  
_What a mess,_ he thought. _What have I gotten myself into?_ This young man, as charming as he was in a quiet sort of way, really could have been a prison escapee, for all that Emmett knew. And maybe now he was trying to ingratiate himself to Emmett in order to steal the Brown's fortune while they weren't looking. Or, --God! maybe he was someone who'd been put away by his father and was out for revenge against the judge! (Or the judge's son.)  
  
Then again, maybe Marty really was just a young man who'd taken a shine to the geeky outcast he'd rescued. It... it wasn't _so_ implausible, was it?  
  
He went to bed a few minutes later, those thoughts still whirling around in his brain. Marty was a bad person; no, Marty was a good person; he'd seen him somewhere; no, he didn't know him at all; if he was so terrible, he'd have just left Emmett to die in the ravine; yes, that much was true; that much was true, at least. He fell asleep remembering Marty's hands in his hair--  
  
\--and woke up to find those same hands reaching for him from the other side of the bed. He scrambled away and landed sharply on the floor, his bony butt having broken his fall. It wasn't that he was scared of Marty, but he definitely wasn't used to having other people in his bed. Furthermore, he'd only become sure it was Marty after he'd patted around on his bedside table for the lamp switch and peeked his head back over the edge of the bed. In the light, it was definitely his young rescuer, leaning toward him and looking quite concerned, but in the dark... Maybe he needed to get his eyes checked, because all he'd seen was a faint glow.  
  
"You okay, Doc?" Marty asked, grimacing.  
  
"My _behind_ will be fine, if that's what you're asking." Emmett pulled himself up off the floor and sat back on the bed after Marty retreated back to the other side. "I think you took five years off my life, though, showing up like that."  
  
"...Sorry," Marty said, in a departure from yesterday's conversational style, when he hadn't often verbally acknowledged Emmett's remarks. "How's your head?"  
  
Emmett reached up to prod gently at the two sensitive spots, luckily hidden beneath his hair. The first one was hardly more than a scrape, from the feel of it, and the second would probably just bruise a little. "I think it's fine," he told Marty, who was visibly relieved. "I'm not concerned about that. What I want to know is how did you get up here again?" ( _And why_ , he thought, though he refrained from asking; Marty hadn't shown himself to be all that great at answering multi-point questions.)  
  
“I...” Marty looked unsure how to answer, and not like he was trying to hide the truth from Emmett, but like he wasn't entirely sure just what the truth was. "I... followed you," he said, somehow making it sound like a question.  
  
"What is that supposed to _mean_?" Emmett asked, frowning. "Look, Marty, I think you're a swell guy, but breaking into someone's house in the middle of the night is generally frowned upon in a court of law. And, you know, by most people. I appreciate you helping me out yesterday, but I have _got_ to know what's going on!"  
  
As uncomfortable as Emmett was with the situation, Marty looked doubly so. "Don't be mad at me, Doc. I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he said, staring like a deer caught in headlights.  
  
"I _am_ okay," Emmett told Marty, wondering why the young man looked so upset when _he_ was the one whose privacy was being violated. "And I'm not mad," he added. "I'm just trying to figure you out."  
  
Marty laughed, or tried to, though he still seemed nervous. "What's there to figure out?" he asked, feigning a nonchalance that faded with each word. "I'm your friend. I was worried about you, after the ravine thing. You're... important to me, Doc, and I never really got a chance to tell you."  
  
Emmett found himself a little breathless at such a confession, no matter how little sense it made to him. "A-are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else?" he asked faintly. He was shivering and almost couldn't look away from the ethereal shine of Marty's blue eyes.  
  
"I know what I'm about, Doc," Marty said, and Emmett wasn't sure about that, but Marty was leaning slowly forward and Emmett was doing the same, and this was crazy; time had slowed to a crawl, and he was about to kiss this boy he hadn't known for twelve hours, this strange and mysterious boy who'd showed up in his room _twice_ now, and he had barely begun to close his eyes, their noses an inch from each others'--  
  
\--when there was a gentle knock at the door, and Marty's eyes widened in fear before he disappeared.  
  
Gone. Right before Emmett's eyes. He could swear he still felt the warmth of his breath on his face.  
  
"What are you still doing up, dear?" Mother called from behind the door, which was still locked from the inside.  
  
"Nothing..." Emmett said softly, barely more than a whisper, still stunned. Then he cleared his throat and raised his voice. "Nothing," he said at an audible level. "I just wanted to write down an idea."  
  
"Alright," Mother said, stifling a yawn. "Goodnight, then." She then, presumably, continued down the hall.  
  
After she was gone, Emmett let out a sigh that was partly a choked sob, but he didn't call for Marty. Because the young man wasn't hiding under the bed or behind the curtains, and he hadn't climbed out the window.  
  
No, he'd simply vanished, because (and Emmett didn't want to admit this, he really didn't want to admit this, when it went against everything he'd spent sixteen years believing, though there was little use denying it now)... because Marty McFly... was a ghost.

X*X*X

 


	2. Chapter 2

Unsurprisingly, Emmett didn't get much more sleep that night, though he lay curled up under his covers for hours more, until the dawn came and he could move about without arousing suspicion.  
  
He'd thought about the situation long and hard, and he didn't think he'd come to the wrong conclusion. There was no getting around it, regardless of his previous beliefs-- which now lay shattered on the floor, as if they too had fallen into the ravine.  
  
Marty McFly was a ghost-- a spirit, a specter. He was what remained of a young man who'd died some time previously. There was just no other option. Three times now, he'd appeared and disappeared. No, _four_ times, Emmett corrected himself, remembering when they'd gone to climb the wall of the ravine. Nobody could climb that fast, and it was dumb of him to ever have convinced himself that Marty could. No, Marty was not a star athlete, he was simply a phantom.  
  
_Simply_ a phantom. _Just_ a ghost. Emmett laughed. _Only_ an apparition! Like there was anything simple about that. He was a man of science (not that he would admit to it aloud, for fear his father might be listening), and science didn't allow for the existence of souls ...did it? He hadn't thought so.  
  
I _may have some 'soul-searching' of my own to do,_ he thought, but otherwise didn't let himself dwell on it. Ghosts existed. Marty was one. That was enough for now.  
  
Almost as amazing was that Marty _liked_ him, for some reason or another. And not for lack of confidence, but Emmett didn't think anyone, even a ghost, was likely to take to him that quickly. (Emmett _did_ lack confidence, he'd admit (due to a perfectly reasonable self-assessment of his own likability), but that was not the issue here.) He'd been almost joking when he suggested that Marty had gotten him confused with someone else, but now he was thinking that it actually made quite a lot of sense. That nickname, 'Doc'; nicknames usually took time, and not a minute and a half. And the way he... acted so familiar with Emmett, so sweet. He'd even said it himself: "I missed you", "You're important to me". ..."I never got to tell you."  
  
_Good lord_ , Emmett thought sadly, more and more depressed on Marty's behalf the further he got in the puzzle. _He died before he could tell this 'Doc' how he really felt about him._ It was almost sadder than he could imagine. (Though not quite. He'd always had a good imagination, and it was really putting itself to use right now.)  
  
It was pretty clear to Emmett _how_ exactly Marty felt about 'Doc', given how close they'd come to kissing last night. But even without that-- if Marty had been anywhere near as sweet to 'Doc' as he had been to _him_ , the man _must_ have known. God he hoped that hadn't had anything to do with Marty's death.  
  
This whole thing was such a mess. How had he gotten involved in this?  
  
' _Oh, that's right,'_ he thought to himself, sarcastic because there was simply no way he could forget. _'It's because I'm Emmett Lathrop Brown, cursed to bear the name of the Shonash ravine trainjacker.'_ He visualized the scene again, as vivid in his mind as a good imagination and ten years of public school history reports could make it. The locomotive plunging off the cliff and into the ravine, the explosion and the devastating crunch of many tons of steel doubly fatal to the engine's three passengers, whose mangled bodies had been pulled piece by piece from the wreckage over the following weeks. The school-teacher, Clara Clayton-- how had she gotten mixed up in something so dangerous when, by all reports, she'd seemed so sensible? And the blacksmith and his apprentice had been well-liked; they'd celebrated with the rest of the town just the week before, commemorating the raising of the clock tower and--...  
  
...and Emmett felt like he was going to be sick with both excitement and dread. He suddenly knew where he had seen Marty before, and it wasn't at the market.  
  
He washed and dressed in record time, and spent the last twenty minutes of morning darkness pacing in his room. As soon as the sun peeked over the horizon, he dashed downstairs, past his long-suffering mother (he stopped just long enough to say 'good morning', but not long enough to hear her response), and out into the street. The school library would have what he was looking for.  
  
Class didn't begin for another hour, so he had plenty of time to find the large old book he remembered studying for history reports in his younger grades. This particular one covered town history from 1880 to 1900, and he found it without any trouble, front and center in the small section devoted to town records and local news. Of the several books like it, this particular one was the most worn; the pages chronicling 1885 were especially bad, smudged and dog-eared multiple times and torn slightly at the edges, but at least the pictures were still intact. There was a photo of the locomotive when it was introduced to the line, sleek and black; beside it was a picture of the wreckage, taken a day after the crash but still smoking and smoldering.  
  
Further down on the page, there was a portrait of a woman: Clara Clayton. Emmett liked the way she looked, always had. She had a kindness in her face that most of his teachers did not. Then again, most of his teachers had been at their job for years, whereas Ms. Clayton had only been in Hill Valley for a week before the... incident. Perhaps she simply hadn't had time to be worn down by her students.  
  
On the next page, after Ms. Clayton's picture was a strange one. He'd seen it before but it always fascinated him. It was of the blacksmith's living quarters, and most of the space was taken up by a gigantic machine (the ice maker, apparently). Much of the rest of the space was full of smaller contraptions. They were beautiful in their own odd way-- inspiring, even. He was glad the book printers had included the photo, even though it had little bearing on the tale of a deranged criminal.  
  
On that note, there was the final photo of the two-page spread: two men standing on opposite sides of the new clock, before it had been raised to its final resting place (and they sent down to theirs). It was labeled "Messrs. Clint Martin Eastwood and Emmett Lathrop Brown", and they looked even more awkward than most of the other people whose photos he'd seen from that era. Still, he recognized them. On the right: the man who'd inadvertently complicated his life by tarnishing their shared name, and on the left: Marty McFly. There was just no mistaking him, even though in the photo he was wearing a suit and didn't look nearly as pleased to be there as he had the handful of times Emmett had seen him thus far.  
  
All the pieces had fallen into place now. Or, well, most of them had, anyway. Marty was the ghost of the blacksmith's apprentice! He'd died in the ravine incident, which was probably why Emmett had found him there, or maybe rather why _he'd_ found _Emmett_ there. And this 'Doc'... There was just no way that he could be anyone other than the blacksmith, the original Emmett Brown.  
  
He knew there had to have been a reason for Marty's acting like that towards him. He wasn't--... He couldn't--... Emmett didn't know how ghosts worked, but maybe after being dead for fifty-odd years, Marty had forgotten what Doc looked like (because they did not look the same _at all_ ) and gravitated toward the closest option: the boy with the same name, the _living_ Emmett L. Brown who _hadn't_ died in a terrible explosion. This whole situation was so--... well, there was a word for it, he was sure, but he couldn't think of it right now. All he could think of was the way Marty had looked at him, with an adoration he most certainly didn't deserve.  
  
So maybe this had raised more questions than it had solved, but if he could get Marty to show up again, maybe he could get some answers. To think! He could speak to somebody who really knew what he'd been wondering all along: the illusive _reasoning_ behind the incident, the thing nobody else had ever seemed to care about.  
  
Now was not the time, however. In fact, he really hoped Marty wouldn't show up while he was in class. Whether the ghost-boy was visible to everyone or could only be seen by him, his appearance would only cause a distraction.  
  
Not that he was going to be able to concentrate at all that day anyway, but Emmett did have at least one other thing he really needed to do before losing all focus. To that end, he carefully closed the book (after one more lingering glance at the last photo) and returned it to its shelf before leaving the library and making his way to his classroom. It was empty, with another half-hour to go before the bell rang, so he sat down at his desk to look for the 'suicide note' the other boys had supposedly left there. It wasn't hard to find-- in fact the corner of it was sticking out between the pages of the textbook they'd been using yesterday; all the better for someone to find it as soon as possible, he supposed.  
  
The note was wrinkled far beyond the state of any of Emmett's other papers, the diction was at most _similar_ to the way he wrote, and the handwriting was only a pale imitation of his own, but he didn't doubt that it would have passed most peoples' inspections. If he'd really died down in the ravine, perhaps even his keen-eyed parents would have been fooled, desperate for some explanation and willing to latch on to the first one they were given. It was terrible. More than what the bullies had done to him, _this_ was unspeakably cruel. Emmett knew that his parents loved him, and he would never want to hurt them like this. (Maybe _once_ he'd thought he could go through with something so drastic, but he'd thought about how his mother would feel (...and his father, alright) and he'd let go of the idea fairly quick.)  
  
And now he knew that even death couldn't solve all your problems. Look at Marty, still pining from beyond the grave and unable to do a damn thing about it.  
  
Emmett shoved the note in his pocket and reorganized his texts and notebooks inside the desk. Then he thought about the note potentially falling out of his pocket, so he laid it out on the desk, scribbled all over it in the darkest marker he could find, and then tore it to shreds. He threw it all in the teacher's waste-paper basket and covered it with a few other balled-up scraps for good measure.  
  
For a few minutes, he sat with his head down on his desk, closed his eyes, and tried to think about everything that had happened in the past 18 hours. He thought as well about what had happened 50 years prior, though most of that was still up to his imagination, until he could get Marty to explain. But when other kids began to filter in, he lifted his head and sat up as straight and proud as he could manage. His tormentors came in in several small groups, chatting with each other as if they hadn't a care in the world, and he gave them each a wide, satisfied smile. The color drained from their faces, but not one of them approached him. They sat down in their seats like stones and stared at him in blessedly-quiet disbelief. It was about as much as Emmett could hope for.  
  
After that, the school-day passed smoothly for Emmett: much the same as usual, but without the constant threat of being pushed around either physically or verbally. The bullies didn't seem to want to come anywhere near him, and they stared from the corners of their eyes as he passed with his head held high, but wouldn't meet his challenging glare all day.  
  
When the final bell rang, he lingered at various points on his route home, just to see if anyone followed, but the road was entirely clear of teenagers with malicious intent (or those with the guts to follow through with it a second time, at least).  
  
Emmett's bravado faded when he was fairly certain nobody was watching anymore. He knew (or at least he was pretty sure) that he had Marty to thank for his safety the previous afternoon, and the bullies' incredulity over his miraculous survival was the only thing keeping him safe now. So he really hoped he'd have a chance to thank the young man.  
  
At home, Emmett said the quickest of hellos to his mother before he climbed the stairs to his room and shut the door. "Marty?" he asked. There was no reply, no glowing in his periphery, and no suddenly-materializing teenage boy. He poked around the room for a few minutes, cleaning up his pile of ruined clothes and reorganizing a few shelves, but Marty didn't show, even after Emmett had called him a few more times. He hoped he hadn't been scared off for good.  
  
At this point, the last thing Emmett wanted to do was sit around and wait for the ghost to reappear. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, answers he _needed_ after a lifetime of burning curiosity.  
  
And, well, he wanted to see Marty again.  
  
Aside from his room, there was only one other place he'd known him to appear, and it wasn't nearly dark yet, so Emmett headed out for the ravine. (He made a point of telling his mother that he was leaving; he didn't want her to worry, though it seemed she had already begun. "Be safe," she said, looking rather sad. He almost stayed to talk to her longer, but he wanted to be out and back before it was too dark, so he left.)  
  
He jogged most of the way, concentrating largely on putting one foot in front of the other, not tripping over clods of weed-grass when he left the paved road and ended up on dirt paths instead. He wondered how the route had looked in 1885, how many, if any, of the roads had existed. Had there been trees or boulders then that weren't there now? Maybe that was why Marty had looked so lost, gazing out at the horizon the day before, like he'd been looking for landmarks that had been destroyed to make room for progress.  
  
He wondered what it would look like 50 years from _now_. Maybe he'd look out at it like Marty had, and some kid would think _he_ looked lost.  
  
He wondered if Marty would stick around another 50 years.  
  
Before he could imagine too far into the future, he came to the edge of the ravine, and was relieved to find exactly what he'd hoped. Marty was sitting there, perched on the cliff with his legs dangling off the side. Emmett had to take a deep breath and remind himself that his friend was at no risk of falling and he didn't need to yank him back across the short fence. He stayed several feet back, for his own sense of safety.  
  
"I thought I might find you at my house," he said to Marty's back. (He'd ditched the poncho, so it was just the off-blue striped shirt he was looking at.)  
  
Marty turned his head, then pulled himself up off the cliff and came to stand on the better side of the fence. "I wanted to give you some space," he said, "after last night. ...I wasn't really thinking."  
  
"Yeah, me neither," Emmett muttered. He'd have probably freaked out a lot earlier, if he _had_ been. He cleared his throat. "It's okay, though. I didn't really mind. I mean--! Um."  
  
Clearly, Emmett still wasn't thinking. Not straight, at least. There were two thought-paths running through his brain in opposite directions. First of all was the way Marty was looking at him, unsure but with such deep affection; it was making Emmett's pulse race and his mouth feel dry, and he wanted Marty to keep looking at him like that as long as possible. (Though, without the uncertainty.)  
  
Then again, he knew that it would be unfair to them both if he didn't set Marty straight pretty quickly. Emmett wasn't Doc, even if they had the same name and lived in the same town, even if Marty saw _something_ in him that reminded him of his late master. Emmett was just some _kid_ , and he could never give Marty what he was hoping for. He couldn't tell him if Doc loved him back.  
  
He took a deep breath. "Marty, I figured out who you are. And I figured out who you think _I_ am. But... I'm not him, I'm sorry."  
  
Marty frowned at him. "I know exactly who you are, Doc."  
  
"But you _don't_!" Emmett said, becoming frustrated. "You think I'm some old inventor you knew in the 1800's, but I'm not! Look at me! I'm sixteen! I'm still a high school student! I can't even tell my father that I'd rather work in science than law!"  
  
"I know, Doc," Marty said with a pitying expression on his face which, on anyone else, would have probably made Emmett mad.  
  
"How can you know any of that?" Emmett asked, the energy suddenly gone from him. "I just met you for the first time yesterday."  
  
"Yeah." Marty nodded. He stepped a little closer. "That's true."  
  
"So, then, you know... You know I'm not _him_?" Emmett gestured uselessly, and Marty stepped forward again, catching up his hands and stilling them.  
  
"Yeah," he said, looking nowhere near as sad as Emmett thought he should. "I know."  
  
"Then why...?" Emmett tugged his hands softly, but not enough to dislodge them from Marty's gentle grip. "Why... this? Last night, why did you--...?" He didn't want to say the words; he was too embarrassed. And, and what if he'd been reading the situation wrong, and Marty hadn't really been... going to... kiss him? (Even thinking it made his face heat up.)  
  
Marty ducked his head, looking like he was a little embarrassed as well. His voice was shy when he spoke up, but still stronger than it had been yesterday. "You mean a lot to me, Doc, I told you." He looked up and met Emmett's eyes, some affection of mysterious origin shining in his expression. "You're more important than you know. And you've got--" He hesitated over the words. "--so much ahead of you that I wanna see."  
  
To be given such a vote of confidence by anyone would be overwhelming. To be given it by the ghost of an attractive young man who you'd sort of technically been obsessed with your whole life? It was a little too much for Emmett to handle, and he really couldn't take it to heart. He just kept repeating over and over in his head his excuses for why this was all so wrong and Marty couldn't possibly know what he was talking about. He was ghost, after all: compromised by trauma at best; completely unhinged at worst. He acted like he knew things, but how could he? How could he possibly know what Emmett was worth? How could he want to stick around? How--  
  
"Doc, calm down," Marty said, his voice low but light. He released one of Emmett's hands so he could gently touch his cheek. "You're thinking too much. It's _okay_."  
  
"I'm not thinking too much," Emmett murmured, still caught in his spiral of worry, trying to get a glimpse at the puzzle again; the pieces just kept falling out. (Marty's touch _was_ calming, but only so much.) "I'm not thinking _enough_. I can't figure this out."  
  
"Maybe you don't have to," Marty suggested, an edge of anxiety coming to his own voice now. He held on a little tighter to Emmett's face, threading his fingers behind his ear, into his hair in a way that was absolutely distracting.  
  
Emmett pulled away a fraction, the back-and-forth nature of their contact almost as maddening as the mystery. "No, I _do_ have to," he told Marty, adamant. "And, yes, I get that you don't want to explain everything to me-- maybe you can't. I don't know. I don't understand you yet, what kind of rules you work on. But, please, just--" He grabbed Marty's hand out of his hair and dragged it down between them again, holding it tight but still. He couldn't think with Marty's hands so gently distracting him, and he definitely couldn't put together any sort of argument like that. "Let me figure this out."  
  
Marty, for his part, looked appropriately chastised by the sudden change. "Okay," he said, yielding.  
  
Emmett took a deep breath. He realized he was going to have to use everything he'd learned from his father about wringing truths from people. Where to start, though? Maybe it was best to begin with what he already knew. “Tell me about 'Doc',” he asked.  
  
Marty didn't seem particularly keen on responding to that suggestion. Sort of a grimace came over his face, like he knew he'd been caught in a lie he couldn't talk his way out of.  
  
Instead of waiting, Emmett opted to provide a few details himself and see if it would help Marty open up. “His name was Emmett Brown, right? He was a blacksmith; an inventor.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said, though he already didn't seem to like where the conversation was heading.  
  
“He was working on something, wasn't he? In 1885.” Emmett shifted his hold a little; it seemed like one of them was sweating, and at this point he thought it could be either of them, regardless of Marty's technically nonliving state. He looked thoroughly nervous. And Emmett couldn't see his own face, but he doubted it looked anywhere near as passive as he hoped. “What were the two of you working on? Or, the _three_ of you?”  
  
“Clara,” Marty said, casting his gaze down, away from Emmett. He looked... sad, or guilty, or... Emmett wasn't really sure. He definitely looked like he had more to say, though; he continued after a few moments, slowly, quietly, like he was recounting a dream. “She wasn't really involved. More like... she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wasn't supposed to die there. Not then.”  
  
As far as Emmett could tell, that was pretty much always what people said when someone they cared about died, to the point of it sounding cliché. 'It wasn't his time.' 'She wasn't meant to die.' He debated saying sorry, but he decided against it, because that was kind of cliché too. Instead, he continued on in his questioning, hoping Marty didn't clam up again.  
  
“The _two_ of you, then. What made you want to, you know, do what you did? ...The train thing. Was it some kind of experiment, or...--?” _Or was Emmett Brown really crazy?_ he just managed not to ask. Probably better not to imply anything too negative about the man in front of Marty, who still seemed quite loyal after all this time. Besides, Emmett himself had a lingering defensiveness about the blacksmith, from all the years of teasing at school. Maybe that was why he wanted these answers, though. He had to know if the man he'd been defending (even if just in his own head) was really worth it.  
  
(In all honesty, though, Marty didn't have to say another thing about Doc for Emmett to know he _was_ worth it, solely based on the fact that Marty cared. What made Marty's opinion matter so much to him, Emmett still wasn't sure.)  
  
“You could say that,” Marty said. He fidgeted a little, and Emmett could feel that it was definitely _the ghost_ sweating, despite how little sense that made. His hands felt clammy and cold.  
  
Emmett nodded. “I always assumed so,” he said, trying to sound more casual, now that he'd gotten Marty to answer at least a few questions. “But I could never figure out just what it was supposed to be _for._ I mean, nobody could.”  
  
While they'd been talking, the sun had begun to set. Now it was hovering around Marty's head, blinding Emmett, which was the excuse he used for why it seemed he lost sight of Marty for a second there.  
  
The ghost, mostly solid, mostly tangible, nonetheless shimmered then, looking anxious. “I really can't tell you anything you don't already know, Doc.”  
  
Emmett got what he meant-- not 'I don't know', but 'I'm not allowed'. “Well, why not?” he asked. “Nobody's stopping you! Look, nobody knows the whole story. Half the people in Hill Valley still think it was just a flashy suicide, and the other half think it was a-- a money thing! If you tell me, I could get your story straightened out once and for all! Isn't--” He paused for just long enough to decide he couldn't stop now, even though he realized rather suddenly that continuing this train of thought could ultimately cause Marty to leave. “Isn't that why you're still here?”  
  
“Doc, no, y'know I don't care what people think,” Marty said, his expression puzzled and just shy of scathing. “I'm here because of you.”  
  
“So why don't you tell me the truth about the incident?” Emmett asked, practically pleading, he was so desperate to get this figured out. “I can't-- I can't just fraternize with the ghost of someone who's widely considered a criminal, without at least understanding why you did what you did! I always told people that you had a reason, but I can't keep that up forever without a scrap of explanation as to why you and Mr. Brown drove a steam engine to your deaths!”  
  
He'd gotten so worked up that Emmett didn't realize that one of Marty's hands had slipped out of his, until the second followed it with a quick yank. The young man looked frightened as hell, like he'd just-- well, like he'd just seen a ghost, and Emmett finally realized that this was the first time since he'd understood Marty's state that he'd alluded to it more than vaguely.  
  
Marty blinked rapidly as he backed away, one slow step at a time. His lips parted as if he was going to say something, but no sound left his mouth. The sun, which had sunk down behind him, shined through him at half-strength.  
  
“Wait wait wait!” Emmett yelled, reaching out for Marty's hand. Too late though; Marty flickered and disappeared, leaving behind just the memory of his thunderstruck expression, and nothing to block the setting sun from glaring brilliantly into Emmett's eyes, making them sting.  
  
Emmett shielded his face, blinking the pain out of his eyes. “Damn it,” he cursed softly. This wasn't what he'd been intending at all. He'd gotten a few bits of an answer, at least, but it wasn't nearly enough to satisfy him. Still, he wasn't sure if the unanswered questions were why he was so upset, or if it was the sudden lack of Marty's presence. God, he really hadn't meant to scare him away; hadn't thought it was possible, actually, Marty being a ghost and all. Didn't it usually go the other way?  
  
There was a _lot_ he didn't know about spirits, obviously.  
  
He stood around for a while, but after he'd called for Marty several times to no response and the sun had gone down leaving the desert cold, he gave up and went home. Chances were, he'd be able to find Marty here again tomorrow, or so he told himself.  
  
Unfortunately, Emmett _did not_ , in fact, find Marty there the next day. Nor did he find him anywhere near the ravine, or on the road back into town, or at his house. He didn't find him in any of those places at all over the course of the next week. It was about ten days later, after Emmett had already begun intensely theorizing about interacting with the hypothetical 'other plane', that Marty finally returned.  
  
The ghost stood by Emmett's bed, and stared at his back for who-knows-how-long before Emmett felt the hairs standing up on his neck and jumped out of his desk chair.  
  
“Marty!” he gasped, shock quickly turning to joy at seeing his dearly-departed friend. Although he'd been thinking about him pretty much nonstop over the past week or so, Emmett hadn't yet really thought what to say to him if or when he did show up again. His only real priority at the moment was not to scare him off a second time, so he didn't ask any of the questions that were burning through him about what had happened or where Marty had gone or how any of this worked-- instead he asked, in as calm and undemanding a voice as he could manage, “Are you okay?”  
  
“...Yeah,” Marty said after a moment. “I just had to... think about some things.”  
  
Emmett nodded enthusiastically-- but not _too_ much. (He still couldn't help treating Marty like a skittish animal, as rude as he knew that was. Marty _was_ a person, just... a confused one, it seemed.) “Right,” he said. “Of course. ...Did you figure out what you needed to?”  
  
A few mild expressions fought for dominance of Marty's face; flashes of denial, sorrow, various other signs of grief, all cycled through in rapid succession, before a bittersweet acceptance settled in. He took a few moments to look around the room, though God only knew what he was seeing. Emmett held his breath the whole time, until Marty looked at _him_. “I think so,” he finally responded.  
  
Letting out a heavy breath, Emmett stepped towards the ghost, almost involuntarily. He wanted to reach out to Marty, to reassure him, or maybe just to prove to himself that he was still there, that he hadn't disappeared again, that he was real (in some way or another) and not just something he'd dreamed up or hallucinated under the effect of a concussion. ( _That_ was real enough, all right, the head wound. It'd been itching relentlessly for days.) But he didn't. He waited. He made himself be patient.  
  
And Marty came to him. He closed the several feet left between them, put them at a distance that was a little bit more than friendly but not yet entirely intimate, and _looked_ at Emmett. He looked at him like he wasn't quite sure if he really dared and, somehow, to Emmett, it was the most human Marty had ever looked. He didn't seem like an entity constantly at war with itself (that was it, Emmett thought, the reason Marty had been so reticent before; he'd been fighting to remember how to act, how to _be_ human), he seemed like any-old teenager considering revealing a dark secret.  
  
The secret, though, wasn't really a secret anymore. And it wasn't that Marty was a ghost, and it wasn't anything that Emmett didn't already know, and it wasn't all that unlike the little giant secrets that people all over the world held and hoped to share with someone important. It was the sort of secret that was perhaps _supposed_ to be a little obvious, but still needed to be said--  
  
\--or admitted to in one way or another.  
  
They didn't talk any more that night about the fact that Marty was dead, and they definitely didn't talk about the fact that Doc was dead too, and that Emmett knew it was really _him_ that Marty wished he could be kissing, and that that fact was going to haunt Emmett for years, far more than he'd ever feel haunted by Marty. No, they didn't do a whole lot of talking at all. Instead, they kissed-- standing there in the dim lamplight-- perched on the edge of the bed-- leaned against the pillows and headboard, with the quilt bunched up by their feet where they'd kicked it while trying to melt into each other-- and Emmett was sixteen, and in ways this was more than he'd ever hoped for, and he thought he could probably handle being someone's second-best if Marty kept smiling like this.   
  
So, they kissed.  
  
But they would talk more another day. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, friends! Let me know if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions!  
> Also, a few notes on my proposed update schedule:  
> I didn't end up writing a whole lot of this during NaNo season in November, but I'm still going to try not to go more than a month or so between updates. That said, holiday season is super busy, so sorry if I'm slow!  
> 


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